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oh well Dragonball and Sailormoon should be in the top 3 together with neongenesis evengelion, for one simple reason. those series did rule the whole anime scene outside of japane for decades, also detective conan, one piece and naruto but those series are least important. Many dudes and artist in the West also love Yoko littner or yoko ritona from guren lagann, so thats also an important series i guess :3

How the fuck did Evangelion rank 1st, and Gundam rank 2nd? There’s absolutely no denying the influence Eva had on anime, but without Gundam mecha anime would all still be fucking 30 minute toy commercials. And why the hell are Evangelion and Gundam so high on the list? Whoever complied this list must have really loved mecha, or is mecha just that big a deal in japan?

Can’t comment on the ones I never heard of but, there are some very notable ones on the list. I might have found room for Speed Racer & Cowboy Bebop. Before you go apesh*t over this statement…It’s ONLY just my personal opinion not, a statement of fact.

Agreed. Besides, there’s no Fist of the North Star, which has influenced pretty much all the anime on that list except Astro Boy and Doraemon. And Lucky Star is a piece of shit, it’s just a female alternative to Cromartie High, so that should be on the list, too. The first 6 on that list is made of fail.

one would easily asume the order is purely coincidential and it doesn not quantify its relevance to the genre.
though like many others it does surprise me how something like otaku video(wich is by nature the very definition of the genre as a whole) not present on the list)

K-ON! Isn’t really ranked too high. It really set off a boom for moeblob animes and has a really goddamn big and obsessive fanbase. It’s almost on par with Haruhi when it comes to how well known it became and how many creepy followers it gained.

This isn’t a “I like this show” list. It’s a list about shows that has had a great significance to the industry and/or has amassed a lot of fame. Good or bad doesn’t matter.

Azumanga Daioh should be on there instead of Lucky Star, Excel Saga should probably be up there as well someplace. I’d probably say Love Hina as well, as it is one of the most well done harems out there, also Welcome to the NHK for comedies.

Azumanga Daioh IS epoch making because it ushered in the epoch of The Slice of Life Moeblob Anime.

Is than not an epoch? Was it not created by Azumanga?

Maybe time will reveal that Lucky Star would be more influential (although I’d argue that LS’s “influence” is entirely superficial ie;character art, catchy themesongs & million-dollar merchandising campaign) but it’s clear that Lucky Star & K-on entered an epoch that had already existed for a few years thanks to Azumanga Daioh.

Kyo-Ani’s creations may have tweaked certain aspects of the Slice of Life genre but they did not create it.

You can’t go back to the stone age. We’re talking “Epoch Making” or whatever. It means anime that influenced a time period heavily. So what did Lucky Star influence? Azumanga did influence Lucky Star, so there you have you’re “epoch-making”.

Tenchi Muyou o/\o. Best harem series ever imo. Kajishima and Hayashi really know how to combine comedy and fanservice without it being obvious and forced, while at the same time keeping with an awesome story. It deserves way more love than it gets.

I honestly don’t know why people concern themselves so much with the positioning of Anime in lists. Personally, I feel that being on the list is all that counts and I have to agree with every single one of them.

Also, I don’t see why K-On!, Lucky Star and Madoka shouldn’t be on the list. With a title like Epoch-Making, you can’t argue that those three Anime did create waves and influenced change in the Anime-world, both within Japan and internationally. It would be delusional to deny that.

Actar, you don’t know the meaning of “influential”. Go watch azumanga daoih, evangelion and space runway ideon first and you will undestand which your retarded argument which lucky star, k-on! and madoka deserves to be in this list are wrong.

Lucky Star and K-On! may be influential, though I personally think they were just more in a long line of cute girls doing things anime.

Madoka, on the other hand, hasn’t changed anything that I’ve seen, so far.

It was just another loltwist anime that a few people are heavily circle jerking over, and everyone else has forgotten by this point. Just because it was about mahou shoujo in this case doesn’t mean it was anything significant.

Saying Madoka is influential in any way would be like saying Serial Experiments Lain was influential in any way. It was different and unusual, but it didn’t change anything at all.

For something to be influential, the work must affect OTHERS works. Is like saying how a movie or a manga with revolutionary ideas created a bunch of similar or inspired works.

Like Pokemon. After Pokemon, a wave of “kids with their *monster/robots/csrds/thigs* became famous. The concept of a powerfull pet might have appeared before, but the way Pokemon presented it became worldwide famous, and changed the industry forever.

Madoka can’t be influential because it is so new that *nothing* was inspired by it.

I mean, other than the shared features of Magical Girl shows like transformation scenes, mascot characters, magical items/powers, the fighting of evil and what not, there really is very little in common between Magical Girl shows. And before anyone says anything, as opposed to being ‘cliches’, I would say that the above characteristics are what defines the genera, like how Macross will always have music and transforming planes and how Kamen Riders will always have a henshin belt. As long as they are handled differently in each work, there should be no problems.

The reason it’s on the list is because it’s a recent show. In ten years it’ll be like Love Hina or Rahxephon or Chobits. Thought of as significant at the time, relegated to the dustbin of history to be only remembered vaguely by those who saw it and end the end recognized by the more well acquainted as just another part of a long line starting before it and continuing after it. Mildly evolutionary, not at all revolutionary.

Not that any of this is to say that madoka wasn’t a decent show. It certainly had some things about it that were okay, but to act like it had some significance beyond it just being another loltwist anime this time in the mahou shoujo genre is putting it on an unmerited pedestal.

The reason it’s on this list is how it looked at the standard mahou shoujo. It was dark and somewhat thought provoking. It had ideas that were deep unlike any other mahou shoujo I have ever seen. It also had an overarching story so you really did have to watch every episode unlike your usual mahou shows that have, for the most part, self contained episodes till the final 5 or 6 episodes of the season.

If we’re talking about overall influence, it’s too early to tell. Madoka still holds up as an anime that, while it sold mostly to otaku, it pulled in people from all different kinds of backgrounds who watched it on television and compared the feeling to when they watched Evangelion. Even though it’s only been about a year, it’s already been spoofed and used several times in other series, and the following “cult” hasn’t diminished much yet. It’s won several awards and gotten critical acclaim from all sorts of big-name places and people. Not to mention, it still appears at the top or near the top of most polls.

I’m not going to claim that it WILL outlast its time, but I’m willing to bet it has a good chance of doing so, if not influencing the future of the Magical Girl genre (like Nanoha did, if not even more dramatically). But only time will tell, so there’s no point in arguing about it to the end yet.

So,… what about Uchuu Kaizoku Captain Harlock? Or Cutey Honey? I don’t even know about Touch, but Urusei Yatsura missing proves this list to be crap. It’s basically the archetype of what anime is nowadays all about.

Seriously, not having Urusei Yatsura on the list shows how little they know about their own fucking stuff. It’d be like saying: “I love RPGs, but what is D&D or Final Fantasy?” You don’t have to know The Dying Earth or, for anime, know that UY is inspired by Bewitched, but sheezus, grow some perspective.

I agree, if you go through all the trouble of creating such a list, you could at least do your homework and do them right.

Or maybe the real context of this list is “Pick the ones that don’t fit”. Then I’ll go with Madoka, Touch and Lucky Star. Madoka because it’s too new, Lucky Star because it was influenced, but hasn’t really brought anything new in the mix. And Touch simply because it’s the only anime on that list that I have neither watched nor heard about.

– Digimon talk.
– Take place in ‘reality’ where Digimon are unnatural.
– Each child has only one Digimon and are treated as Partners.
– Digimon ‘digivolve’ to a more powerful form for battle and revert back to Rookie form after.
– Digivolution is usually triggered through character growth.
– Goal is to defeat the bad guy and restore peace and order to the world.
– Overarching story based.
– Individual seasons with unique characters, settings and plot for each one. Not to mention, the characters are deeper and the concepts discussed and brought up are far more mature.

Pokemon

– Pokemon do not speak
– Take place in a ‘fictional’ world where Pokemon are everywhere.
– Each person can have multiple Pokemon and they are treated more as animals/pets.
– Pokemon evolve when they gain enough battle experience.
– The main goal is defeating all the Gym Leaders to be the ‘best’.
– More episodic.
– If I’m not mistaken, Ash/Satoshi has been the main character even till now and the setting/world has remained the same.

…also, not sure about Pokemon, but Digimon was really dumbed down in the US dub…

I’d honestly say Revolutionary Girl Utena subverted the magical girl thing before any of those; it has transformations, and was technically consider a magical girl show, even though it was /anything/ but.

The key word is “influential,” people. It doesn’t matter what subverts what if nobody cares. Friggin’ Dokuro-chan and Dai Mahou Touge subvert magical girls, and that’s not an automatic ticket to anything. And I say that as a Tutu fan, though my penis draws the line at Utena (it can also do sketches).

Now, we haven’t seen entire strings of Madoka imitators yet besides Symphogear. But it has become a top seller in Japan, anime or otherwise. That’s why it already counts as a landmark.

Overall a great list. I would personally move madoka below Ghost in the Shell, and move Sazae-San up. I would also like to move Ghost in the Shell up, but those are some giants of the Anime industry above it.

No, like DeadGoon said Ghost in the Shell was first and Cowboy Bebop came during the “golden Age” of American anime. What got the American market truly interested in anime was Robotech (Macross). That was the first major anime that got somewhat of a wide spread release AND a large following.

Akira ranked 20th is a travesty! Akira and Ghost in the Shell are not only influential anime, they’re influential works of art whose impact on cinema and animation have transcended time, and will continue well into the future.

Yeah, surprisingly each and every one of these has in some way enhanced a section of a genre at the time of its creation. Haruhi has almost singlehandedly upped the game in terms of animation quality since its creation, and while Madoka’s influence hasn’t been quantified yet in any way I’ve seen, you could say that it’s the new generation’s Evangelion.

Eva combined what people were used to being awesome with being psychological drama, and Madoka took what is perceived as generally heartwarming and empowering to being simultaneously very human. Similar, but at near complete opposite ends of the spectrum. I didn’t find it as enthralling personally, but then nothing will hit me as hard as it would if I were still a teenager discovering new concepts like Eva did at the time. Eva was Metaphysics 101, which still amuses me that people think is hippy bullshit, since quantum physics is catching up and scientifically proving things metaphysics has stated for decades. Madoka tries something like that, but really it’s more poignant as a ‘have you considered another perspective?’ type impact.

It’s the same thing with all the lists. People mistaking their own personal opinions for fact.

But then again, many people also don’t realize that these lists are the result of other fans’ (usually Japanese fans) personal opinions. It wouldn’t be a surprise if there were a cultural gap and when judging lists or the opinions of Japanese fans, we should alter our own expectations and cultural preconceptions.

Well said, HouseLife. I think most of the people here in SanCon just hate Madoka because it was popular, but If it weren’t for that amazing series I would’ve never gotten into the “Mahou Shoujo” genre. Years from now we’ll definitely see the impact it had on the industry.

Seriously, the gap between these titles and the others in terms of significance and long term influence is greater than all the oceans of Earth combined. Some of these old series invented genres or introduced anime to the entire globe. Shit like Madoka, K-On, Haruhi Suzumiya are all fads of the time. They will have 0 impact on future projects and will not remian in the anime cultural mind outside of an occasional reference inside of a hardcore fanboy service anime.

Does the writer of this article even know what epoch means? Ignoring the fact that this list is totally asinine, I have to say that if Madoka is more influential and/or memorable than any of the series listed below it by any stretch of the imagination, then I’m square-dancing on the moon.

the fact that k-on is above sailor moon and dragon ball must be a misprint, but it would have been pure blasphemy if it beat out card captor sakura. honestly sailor moon could have been higher with the amount magical girls and transformations in anime shows since.